160 YEARS OF THE CIU
160 glorious years if the Club & Institute Union The Working Men’s Club & Institute Union was formed at a meeting on June 14, 1862 at Waterloo Place, London. Club Journal looks back at the early days of the Union under its founding father, the Reverend Henry Solly.
CIU clubs have been a force for good in their local communities since 1862.
H
aving been founded in 1862, thus predating the FA Cup, the British Red Cross and the Coca-Cola Company, the Working Men’s Club & Institute Union (CIU) has been a force for good in local communities since the reign of Queen Victoria. In his official history of the Union, Clubmen, published in 1987, George Tremlett wrote: “It was the clubs and institutes that gave working men somewhere to meet and relax once their day’s work was done; somewhere to develop hobbies and skills, from gardening to snooker, from darts to the breeding of racing pigeons; a place where they could perhaps, by taking part in the management of their clubs, make a real contribution to the communities in which they lived.” And, save for the reference to ‘men’ – of course, women are now an intrinsic and much-valued part
of life at CIU clubs – Tremlett’s description of the role of the Union’s clubs stands as true as ever in 2022 with an array of activities taking place in our clubs, up and down the land, seven days a week. For the majority of club members, one of the key attractions of heading to a CIU club is the chance to enjoy a drink or two with like-minded people, something which is a far cry from the original vision of the CIU’s founding father, the famously teetotal Reverend Henry Solly. A Unitarian minister, Solly was the driving force behind the formation of the Union as a way of establishing an attractive alternative to pubs as the venues of choice for the urban working class during their leisure time. For Solly, consuming alcohol, even in moderation, was not something to be encouraged.
In 1861, he and the Reverend David Thomas of Brixton set about trying to raise the sum of £3 million – the equivalent of about £380 million in purchasing power in today’s money – to establish a society that would build a national chain of working men’s clubs. The venture was envisioned as a private venture but was later switched to a more philanthropic footing when the appeal for funds proved largely unsuccessful. Thus it was, that on June 14, 1862, with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham, chairing proceedings, that the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union was formed at the Law Amendment Society’s Rooms in Waterloo Place, London. Speaking at the meeting were John Bainbridge, an upholsterer by trade and Mr Bebbington, a costermonger who had become Secretary of the
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